Badminton feud ends as Prakash, Verma bury hatchet
The three-month-long standoff between the Badminton Association of India and the breakaway Indian Badminton Confederation has been resolved.
At a hastily called media conference in New Delhi, BAI president V K Verma announced that Prakash Padukone has agreed to disband the IBC and will, henceforth, work as the executive president of a new executive council formed under the BAI aegis.
Prakash's aide and IBC secretary S S Mani has been named one of the two BAI general secretaries, alongside L C Gupta of the BAI. The new executive council will be ratified at an upcoming meeting of the BAI general body, Verma said.
Other appointments include that of Rajinder Kalsi (Punjab) as treasurer, replacing the long-serving Ahmed Hussain, while Hyderabad's S M Arif will replace T P S Suri as the chief national coach.
Describing the feud between the BAI and IBC as "a little skirmish which always happens within a family", Verma said that he and Padukone had buried the hatchet and come together again with the good of the game in mind. "All the publicity there has been can now be used for the good of the game," Verma added in a lighter vein.
Asked what Prakash's role would be, Verma said that as executive president, the former ace would be in charge of adminstering and monitoring all schemes relating to coaching, development and planning, including finances, through the trust.
Prakash for his part pronounced the decision to merge the two bodies as very good, and explained that all concerned would now sit together to streamline tournament schedules. A new common calender merging the IBC and BAI tournaments, and adding more prize money, will shortly be announced.
As part of the deal, all players who sided with the breakaway IBC will be forgiven their role in the rebellion. "We are actually trying to help some of them get entries to international tournaments at the last minute, and have already managed to enter Gopi Chand in the Danish Open and the Dutch Open," Verma announced.
The men's and women's national champions will represent the players in the executive committee - a new and, both Verma and Padukone agreed, welcome development.
Meanwhile at the state level, parallel associatons formed after the IBC breakaway will be asked to sit together and thrash out merger modalities. Both Verma and Padukone will be available to sort out any tangles in course of this exercise, it was said.
Asked why the rebellion was so suddenly resolved, Mani said, "There was tremendous pressure on us from many sides, including the Indian Olympic Association, to come together and find a settlement. People like Anil Mahesh, secretary of the Badminton Lovers Trust, and Pradeep Gandhe, former national player, have helped forge the patchup."
|
